


Red

by bananannabeth



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 00:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9264923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananannabeth/pseuds/bananannabeth
Summary: They're in the third grade when Stiles Stilinski moves into the house behind Lydia Martin, and she doesn't want to like him, but she sort of does.They're graduating high school when Stiles Stilinski decides to go to college five and a half hours from Lydia Martin, and she doesn't want to love him, but she sort of does.There's a lot of stuff in between.





	

 

 

 

She wishes it didn't happen like this, but it did, and it has, and there's nothing she can do to change it now.

 

“In another world,” he whispers into her hair, words spilling over her temple and brushing her eyes shut, “in another universe, with a different you and a different me, we would have been together.”

 

In this life, though, her entire existence has been racing towards this point.

 

And there's no changing it now.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

His name is Stiles Stilinski, which is probably the weirdest name she’s ever heard in her life, but somehow it suits him.

 

They’re in the third grade and he's moved into the house behind hers, and as she’s swinging in her backyard he climbs the tree overhanging their shared fence. His jeans are too baggy and he tears his shirt on a branch and doesn't even seem to notice.   
  
  
  
“What’s your name?” he asks, perched above her.

  
  
She kicks harder so that she can swing to his eye level. “Lydia.” _Kick, swing_. “Lydia Martin.”

 

“Lydia Martin,” he repeats, tasting her name on his tongue. “That’s a nice name.”

 

“Better than Stiles,” she says smugly, testing him.

 

She expects him to get huffy and disappear back into his own yard, but Stiles surprises her by barking out a laugh. “Stiles is better than my real name.”

 

Lydia stops swinging. “Stiles isn’t your real name?”

 

He shakes his head and crawls further along the tree branch. “Nah. Everyone calls me Stiles though.”

 

“So your real name’s a secret, then?” Lydia asks with pursed lips. Secrets are something she’s good with.

 

“I guess so.”

 

“Can I know it?”

 

Stiles smiles down at her, and it’s sharp at the edges - almost like he’s testing her, too. “Maybe later.”

 

She shrugs and goes back to swinging, trying to look unaffected, but Stiles is still on the tree branch, smiling that secret sort of smile, and she’s a little bit annoyed.

 

She doesn’t want to, but she sort of likes him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He's the new boy at school and Lydia feels important because she’s the only person he knows, which means that she gets to show him around and answer any questions he has. He has a lot of questions, about where things are and why things are and who people are.

 

Lydia does her best to answer them all, but she’s stumped when he asks her what sports there are.

 

“Lacrosse,” Scott McCall says, leaning across the table. He sits opposite Lydia but they’ve never really talked before, because Scott is shy and small and constantly using his inhaler. “I mean, that’s what all the big kids play. That’s what I’m gonna play.”

 

“No way,” Stiles says, brown eyes wide and attention completely on Scott. “Do you think I could play lacrosse, too?”

 

“Yeah!” Scott exclaims. “We could be on the team together!”

 

Stiles half stands up so they can reach over the table and give each other a high five, and Lydia rolls her eyes.

 

When Stiles ignores her for the rest of the lesson she retaliates by ‘accidentally’ scratching a line of red crayon down the side of his work sheet.

 

“Hey!” he says, throwing his arms up. “What’d you do that for?”

 

Lydia presses her lips together. “It was an accident.”

 

He frowns at her for a few seconds before mumbling something she doesn’t catch. He tries to scrub the crayon off, but when that just makes the mess worse he just sighs and goes back to talking to Scott.

 

Lydia acts like she doesn’t care, but she does, a bit.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

That night he climbs the tree again, making sure not to rip his shirt this time. He calls out to Lydia but she studiously ignores him, still seething over him choosing Scott over her. Stiles stretches onto his stomach and rests his head on his folded arms, staring at her.

 

“Are you all right?” she asks sarcastically, pointedly not looking at him.

 

He misreads her tone completely and mistakes her words for an invitation. He tries to jump out of the tree but falls instead, flailing as he tries and fails to grab a branch on the way down. The bones in his left arm crunch painfully as his whole weight lands on them alone, and he makes a weird sort of howling noise as soon as he hits the ground, clutching his arm to his chest and scrunching his eyes shut.

 

He gets a white plaster cast and all the kids at school sign it. He tells them all that Lydia broke his arm like it’s something she should be proud of.

 

Lydia draws a tree on his cast, branches twisting around the sides, and Stiles smiles.

 

“Sure you don’t wanna add some red?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The plaster comes off five weeks later.

 

Stiles climbs the tree and drops into Lydia’s backyard every night after that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They do a lot of drawing and reading and studying together, and they walk through the woods and pretend that they’re filled with monsters. Scott joins them most of the time, running as fast as he can go before he needs to stop and use his inhaler.

 

Scott’s parents fight almost as much as Lydia’s, so they always end up at Stiles’s house, building blanket forts in the lounge and sneaking junk food in when the Sheriff and Claudia aren’t looking.

 

Lydia doesn’t understand how she can feel so safe in a place as strange to her as that, but somehow she always does.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Stiles wants to be in the police force when he grows up. Or maybe a detective, or an FBI agent. But something, something in the force. Like his dad.

 

Lydia wants to be a mathematician. She wants to figure out the sums that hold the secrets of the universe, she wants to make things that can change lives.

 

Scott doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. Maybe a zookeeper.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

A few weeks later Lydia overhears her mom talking to Claudia about her visit to the hospital.

 

“Why was she at the hospital?” Lydia asks Stiles. “Was she visiting Scott’s mom?”

 

“Um.” Stiles scratches his cheek nervously. “Maybe.”

 

He mumbles something that makes no sense before changing the subject, asking if she wants to play some lacrosse with him and Scott. She says yes, even though she knows that she’s pretty terrible at it, but it turns out they’re both pretty terrible at it, too, so it’s okay.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Stiles loves curly fries. They’re like his favourite food in the whole world, and he would eat them all day if his mom let him. Lydia laughs as he tries to eat a whole handful of them at once, and he sort of chokes a little bit as he laughs back.

 

They’re nine and sitting across from each other at Lydia’s kitchen table sharing a bag of them when Stiles tells her that he thinks she’s the prettiest girl in school.

 

She just rolls her eyes and tells him to hand the fries back, but inside she feels a sort of warmth she’s never experienced before. It blooms and spreads throughout her chest, all the way up from her toes to her face, which suddenly feels uncomfortably hot.

 

Stiles smiles knowingly and takes his time in passing over the fries.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He wears stupid t-shirts with weird characters on the front, and big, baggy flannels with checks of colour, squares of different shades of blue and green criss crossing over the fabric. One of his favourite things, though, is his red hoodie.

 

“It’s red, like your hair,” he says when she asks him why he likes it so much.

 

Lydia scoffs. “My hair is not that color.”

 

“No, you’re right,” Stiles says. “Your hair is a much worse color.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They’re ten when Claudia dies.

 

Lydia stands between her mom and Scott at the funeral, wearing a new black dress and crying because Stiles is crying.

 

He doesn’t let go of his dad’s hand for the whole service, and he doesn’t look at anyone as her casket is lowered into the ground.

 

Stiles cries, and cries, and Lydia squeezes Scott’s hand and cries, too.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They’re a proper group for all of their adolescence, never one without the others.

 

It’s always the three of them, always together, as though they no longer exist as beings in their own rights but have become one.

 

Lydia doesn’t know what she’d do without them, without her boys. She cheers them on when they make the lacrosse team, makes banners and claps until her hands hurt, and they help her brainstorm and quiz her on the extra credit questions and they work so well together, the three of them.

 

And then Allison Argent appears, and Scott is immediately smitten, and Lydia and Stiles are immediately wary.

 

Allison is beautiful, though, charming and disarming and genuine, and she makes it her mission to win them all over at the same time as winning Scott over, and it works.

 

And so the three of them becomes the four of them, and Lydia sort of loves it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

For her sixteenth birthday Stiles gets her a present that’s too big to even fit through her front door.

 

Lydia rolls her eyes and leaves him struggling to squeeze it inside, until Scott convinces her to take pity on him and they help him bring it in.

 

“Aren’t you gonna open it?” Stiles asks as soon as they’ve manoeuvred it inside her house.

 

“No,” she says, smirking. “I’m gonna save it.”

 

Stiles frowns, but Scott smiles like he gets it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He really shouldn’t, but Stiles likes to help his dad with cases. He has a board set up in his room with clues pinned on it, all connected by different strings.

 

Lydia’s lying on her stomach on his bed one day, twirling some red thread around her fingers and wondering what exactly it is about his bedroom that she finds so comforting, when she finally asks, “What do the different colored strings mean?”

 

Stiles glances over his shoulder at her. “Uh, they’re just different stages of the investigation. So, like, green is solved, yellow is to be determined… blue’s just pretty.”

 

Lydia nods and crosses her legs at the ankles. “What does red mean?”

 

“Uh, unsolved,” he says reluctantly.

 

“You only have red on the board.”

 

“Yes, I’m aware, thank you,” he snaps, and she struggles not to laugh.

 

Lydia remembers a myth her grandmother used to tell her - that two soulmates were connected by a red string of fate, tied to each of their pinkies. As they moved apart, the string might twist and tangle into knots, but it would never break. The soul mates would always be connected, always pulled back towards each other.

 

She ties the string around her pinkie finger. It’s a nice fairytale.

 

“Hey,” Stiles says, dropping to his knees in front of her. “You okay?”

 

Lydia’s mouth goes dry as he carefully unwinds the string from her finger, his hand brushing hers with every movement. His amber eyes are serious as he looks up at her through his lashes, and Lydia’s breath catches in her throat as they each hold an end of the string.

 

“Yeah,” she says, smiling softly. “I’m okay.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

One day they’re out in the woods when it starts pouring with rain. They run for cover, and Stiles nearly slips on the wet concrete as they skid out of the wood and onto the road. Lydia grabs his hand to stop his arms from pin wheeling and help him regain his footing, and she doesn’t let go until they’re safely inside his beat up, blue Jeep.

 

“Are you okay?” he asks, leaning across the centre console, where she’s currently putting her phone to keep it dry, and she feels the words against her lips.

 

She looks up and is surprised by just how close he is. She can almost taste him.

 

Stiles is looking at her with wide eyes, pupils blown, and she wonders if he can hear her heart thumping in her chest. She tilts her head to the side, and Stiles is staring at her lips, and it would be so easy to kiss him right now -

 

Lydia blinks and leans back.

 

Oh, no.

 

“Fine,” she says sharply. “I’m totally fine.”

 

Stiles sits back in the driver’s seat, scratches his cheek and grips the wheel tightly. “Okay. I’m, uh, I’m just gonna… go, then. I’ll just. Yep. I’ll… I’ll drive you home.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They while away their afternoons with useless things like television and procrastinating over their homework, because they’re both clever and they know that they’ll get it done, in the end.

 

Stiles is constantly fixing up the Jeep, because it’s old and beaten but he will never, ever abandon it. Lydia offers to help but he refuses, so that becomes a new part of their routine; Stiles fixes the car while Lydia perches on the bench in his garage and passes him tools.

 

She tells him he looks cute with grease smeared across his cheeks, and he tries to act like he’s not pleased.

 

The future creeps up on them, and one day at the start of senior year they’re all spread out in Stiles’s room, looking at college brochures and trying not to panic. Lydia’s sitting on the floor, legs crossed at the ankles and back resting against the mattress of his bed, idly flipping through promotional material. She already knows where she’s going, but she hasn’t quite figured out how to tell anyone, yet.

 

“We’re sticking together,” Stiles promises from where he’s sprawled out on his bed. “We can’t be like our parents, we can’t lose contact.”

 

“We’re not going to lose contact, Stiles,” Allison says gently. She’s sitting on Scott’s lap in the desk chair, holding a UCLA brochure. “Besides, we’ve still got a whole year at school. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

 

Stiles makes a noise of disagreement but doesn’t say anything more, and when Lydia looks up at him he’s frowning down at her in a way that makes her stomach twist.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Jackson Whittemore has been in their class for years and never paid them any attention, despite being on the lacrosse team with Scott and Stiles, but the start of Senior Year Lydia wears a cute little mini to school and suddenly Jackson seems interested in her.

 

Stiles grumbles about how all the girls are only interested in Jackson because they don’t know that he’s a giant dick, and Lydia laughs and says that’s exactly why all the girls are interested in him. Stiles doesn’t appreciate the joke.

 

When Jackson finally asks her out, Lydia almost says no. She thinks of how disappointed Stiles will be in her - and then she says yes, just to spite him, because if Stiles wanted to ask her out he could have done so ages ago.

 

So Lydia flashes her most dazzling smile and tells Jackson she’d love to go on a date with him.

 

When Allison asks her if she can come over Friday to help her with bio homework, Lydia says nonchalantly, “Sorry, Ally, I can’t. I have a date on Friday.”  
  
  
  
Stiles trips over a chair. “ _What_?”

 

Lydia tosses her hair over her shoulder and repeats, “I’m going on a date on Friday.”

 

Stiles is gripping the back of the chair so tightly his knuckles have gone white. “With who?”

 

“Jackson,” she says, like it’s no big deal, like she can’t see the sadness in Stiles’s eyes.

 

“Jackson?” Stiles looks like he wants to say a thousand more things, but instead he just roughly pushes the chair in and turns away, storming out of the library without a glance back.

 

Scott and Allison share a look before Scott clears his throat. “I’ll, uh, I’ll go see if he’s okay.”

 

The girls watch him leave, and Lydia tries to ignore the guilt clamping down on her gut. “What?” she snaps at Allison’s doe eyed look. “I’m allowed to go on _dates_ , it’s not like Stiles is my - my -”

 

Allison pointedly looks down, and Lydia twists her lips into a sneer. She can’t even bring herself to finish the sentence.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Where Stiles is all flailing limbs and small smiles and sarcastic wit, Jackson is clean, sharp lines, calculated comebacks and underwear model good looks. Something about him resonates with Lydia, in a scary sort of way. He’s unapologetically ambitious, and she admires that.

 

He’s nice to her, too, and when she tells him to be nice to Scott and Stiles and Allison, he’s nice to them, as well. People outside of their small group start to notice Lydia, learn her name and invite her to parties, and it’s quite nice, actually, so when Jackson starts introducing her as, “Lydia, my girlfriend,” she doesn’t correct him.

 

Until Stiles overhears one day and says, “I never thought I’d hear you being referred to as someone’s girlfriend.”

 

Lydia starts, hand coming to her collarbone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“Nothing, I just -” Stiles sighs and drops his eyes. “You’re more than someone’s girlfriend, Lyds. I just didn’t think you’d want that to be all you were known as.”

 

It hits a nerve, and so she doesn’t say anything in reply.

 

Stiles shakes his head and laughs, but it’s not really a laugh at all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The end of school arrives all in a rush, and despite Stiles’s stubbornness, they do end up going their separate ways, a little. Lydia’s off to Stanford, and Scott and Stiles are off to UCLA, and Allison’s starting her academic career by studying abroad in France.

 

The day they all say goodbye to her at the departure gate, Lydia grabs for Stiles and Scott’s hands and squeezes, not bothering to wipe away her tears. She lifts their hands up to wave, awkward and emotional, as Allison turns around one last time to say goodbye, and when she disappears around the corner Lydia doesn’t let go.

 

Scott is crying and Mr Argent is definitely trying to fight back tears, and even when they turn around to head back to the car, Stiles doesn’t let Lydia go. He holds her hand all the way back to Beacon Hills, and when he finally does let go she almost starts sobbing all over again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Stanford is great. It’s an excellent school, with excellent courses, and everyone Lydia meets is tolerable. Her roommate’s girlfriend also goes to Stanford, so she’s hardly in their dorm, which Lydia is not at all heartbroken about.

 

She Skypes her mom weekly, and she messages Allison and Scott and Stiles daily, but it’s not the same as having them there with her, and Lydia feels a little unmoored, a little lost without them.

 

For the first time in her life she’s almost challenged by her classes - _almost_ \- and the workload is a little more than she was expecting, but she handles it with all the grace and charm everyone expected her to.

 

She’s taking a brief study break a few weeks into semester when she logs into Facebook and sees a picture of Jackson, arm curled around a pretty brunette who has her lips pressed against the corner of his Hollywood bright smile.

 

She picks her phone up to text him something scathing but it buzzes with an incoming call before she can even gather her thoughts, and she swipes to accept it without pausing to think.

 

“You okay?” Stiles asks breathlessly, as though he was waiting with baited breath for her to pick up.

 

“Yeah,” she says absently, twirling a strand of hair around her finger and staring at the picture. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

 

“Because…” He hesitates, and then says apprehensively, “Jackson -”

 

“Yeah, I know.” She pauses, chews her lip and then closes the tab on her laptop. “I’m fine.”

 

“Are you?” Stiles asks disbelievingly.

 

Lydia stands up from her desk and stretches, glad that her roommate is once again absent. “Yeah. It was - we haven’t been right for a while.”

 

“Mhmm,” Stiles says, which she interprets to mean  _you haven’t been right ever_. “What are you doing tonight?”

 

“Uh.” Lydia looks at her browser, tab after tab of readings and articles open. “Studying.”

 

Stiles makes an offended noise and there’s a crash in the background, followed by what sounds suspiciously like Scott yelling out.

 

“What was that?” Lydia asks.

 

“Nothing,” Stiles says quickly, but he’s obviously biting back a laugh and Scott is still thumping around in the distance. Lydia is hit by a distinct pang of longing.

 

“I miss you,” she says before her brain can catch up to her mouth. She hurriedly adds, “Both of you. I miss you both.”

 

Stiles’s voice is much softer when he says, “We miss you too, Lyds.”

 

Scott yells out in the background, “Lydia! Hi, Lydia! Are you okay? Stiles, is she okay?”

 

“Yeah, man, she’s okay,” he says fondly, and she can picture his smile. Her heart twists and she bites down on her lip to stop herself from sobbing. “Do you wanna watch a movie?”

 

“Uh, Stiles, I’m not driving five and a half hours to watch a movie with you.”

 

“Flight’s only a little over an hour.”

 

Lydia rolls her eyes. “I love you, but not that much.”

 

There’s a pause, and she’s just starting to panic when Stiles says, “No, you genius, we can watch it at the same time. And stay on the phone.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Does that mean yes?”

 

She smiles. “Yes. Okay, yeah.”

 

“Great! Scotty, get your laptop set up, we’re watching a movie with Lydia!”

 

She hears Scott holler joyously, and Stiles laughs, and Lydia laughs too and settles herself on her bed, dragging her laptop down with her.

 

“We’re watching The Notebook,” she says.

 

“Nope,” Stiles says firmly, and she can hear rustling as he moves, probably settling on the couch. Then there’s a change in volume as he puts her on speaker and sets his phone down. “I feel bad for you, but I don’t feel that bad.”

 

“It’s a cinematic classic,” she says, but her heart isn’t in it, and the boys know it.

 

“Yeah, nah,” Stiles says. “We’re not watching The Notebook again.”

 

Scott says, “Sorry, Lyds.”

 

She snuggles further into her pillows and grins despite herself. “Whatever. It’s not like this is _my_ movie night, or anything.”

 

“Hey, my idea, my movies,” Stiles says, half joking.

 

If Lydia closes her eyes, she can almost pretend they’re there with her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It gets harder to keep in touch as the semester goes on. Things get busier and the workload increases and finals are sort of a killer, but Lydia also sort of thrives in it. She throws herself into her work and becomes engrossed in theories and numbers and loses track of the days until it’s time to go home for the holidays.

 

Beacon Hills hasn’t changed.

 

Lydia has.

 

She feels vaguely out of place driving down the familiar streets with her mother, and returning to her childhood bedroom makes her feel old. She lies awake for hours, trying to get her brain to turn off, but she can’t stop running over memories of this room - getting ready to go out with Allison, studying with Scott, lounging around with Stiles. None of them are coming home for the holidays, and she would have stayed on campus herself if Natalie hadn’t looked so sad in their last Skype call.

 

It feels wrong, though, being here without Stiles, without her friends.

 

A thump sounds from the backyard, and Lydia jolts upright. When she looks out her window someone is hanging from the overhanging tree branch, feet kicking against the fence as they scramble to unhook their shirt from the bark.

 

“Stiles,” she breathes, praying that her mom hasn’t woken up.

 

She runs downstairs and into the backyard, barely pausing to grab a jacket and totally foregoing shoes. She makes it out just in time to see Stiles tearing the bottom of his flannel free and falling with no grace to the ground.

 

“Stiles!” she shouts, rushing over to him.

 

“Hey,” he says, slightly winded.

 

She helps him sit up, hands fluttering over his spine, his shoulders, his head. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Surprise?” He offers her an uneven smile.

 

“Oh, my god, Stiles.” She throws her arms around him a tight hug, holding him close, because this is the best surprise. “Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah.” He stands up and brushes himself off. “I - ah, I was going for sentimental value, you know…”

 

Lydia laughs, because of course he was. “I figured.”

 

“Anyway… Hi.”

 

Her heart is racing. “Hi.”

 

“Do you wanna go for a drive?” Stiles asks, suddenly standing very still and very close to her.

 

“Yeah.” She nods, licking her dry lips. “Yeah, okay.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The Jeep is just as she remembers it - beaten and battered and blue, but so obviously well loved. She settles into the passenger seat and smiles over at Stiles as he starts it up, fingers drumming nervously against the wheel as he pulls out of his drive and takes off into the night.

 

They drive to the woods in silence, and Lydia sticks her hand out the window and waves it along with the currents of air streaming by. The wind is cold and refreshing against her skin and she smiles over at Stiles as he glances at her, a smile quirking up the corners of his lips.

 

“I love you,” she says without thinking. It’s different this time, and they both know it. “I’ve really missed you. And I love you.”

 

He glances at her again, jaw dropped. “Lydia, I -”

 

The animal comes from nowhere. One second the road is clear, and the next there’s this huge hulking dark shape running straight at them and charging into the hood.

 

They scream and Stiles jerks the wheel violently to the right to try and get away from the animal, which has already knocked the car off balance and dented the hood. Steam’s pouring out the sides, and Stiles’s hands are sliding on the wheel as he struggles to regain control. The woods are dark and Lydia wrenches her arm back inside the window just as the car races off the road.

 

The world tumbles over itself, twisting in and blurring out of focus and swirling into a shining nebula of screeching tires, crushing bark and screaming metal, crunching in around them until Lydia can’t breathe.

 

She lurches over the centre console, into Stiles’s outstretched arm and he holds her tight, cradles her head as she folds in towards him. He smothers her screams in his hoodie and they roll in the most unnatural way.

 

There’s screaming and crashing and Stiles’s heart beating erratically right in her ear, and then there is nothing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

There’s red.

 

Red, like the colour of Lydia’s hair, like the fire burning in her soul and down her limbs, like Stiles’s hoodie, like a scratch of crayon on the side of a worksheet,like a red string tying two soulmates together, like the metallic blood pooling in her mouth and sticking to her skin.

 

There’s so much red.

 

Lydia screams, but no sound comes out.

 

Stiles is above her, blurred at the edges, with dark eyes, a deep gash on his face and quivering lips. She can feel his hands cupping her face, but they seem detached, somehow, almost like they’re a part of her rather than a part of him. She has a terrible sense of deja vu, and she wonders if her brain is already misfiring.

 

“Lydia,” he says, choking. “Lydia, you can’t - I’m coming to Stanford, Lyds, we’re gonna go to school together. That’s why I’m here, that’s what I came to tell you. It’s gonna be you and me again, like old times. You can’t - You can’t go, Lydia, not like this, not here, not - Please don’t go, Lydia, please don’t leave me -”

 

She wants to reply. She wants to tell him that she’s not leaving him, she’ll never leave him, she’s been his since third grade even if she never wanted to admit it.

 

“Stiles,” is all she says, slow and sad.

 

His heart is beating quadruple for every single beat of hers, and she knows that’s wrong but she can’t articulate why.

 

He gasps, as though the oxygen is being stolen from his lungs, too. “Lydia, I love you.”

 

He bows his head over hers and whispers his name into her ear, his real, secret name, and she clutches at the front of his shirt with all of the strength she can muster.

 

“Remember I love you,” she says, and if she has to go she’s glad that at least she can tell him that before she does.

 

Stiles sobs, and Lydia stills, and this world ends.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to come yell at me about this over on my tumblr; bananannabeth


End file.
